Etudes Epistémè, Université Paris III - Sorbonne Nouvellecontact email:
christine.sukic@univ-reims.fr; coussement@univ-paris-diderot.frCall for Contributors: "Acts of Writing in the Early Modern Literature
of Europe”In the literature of early modern Europe, there are numerous literal or
metaphorical "acts of writing”: legal, commercial, epistolary or
literary. Writing serves to construct memory and can become actual
inscription, as in Hamlet, when the hero, confronted with the injunction
of his father’s ghost, feels compelled to exclaim: "My tables, / My
tables – meet it is I set it down” (Hamlet, I.5.107-108). But writing
can have other implications – it can be a sign of authorial
self-reflexivity; it can enhance the power of the spoken word by
creating a visual sign on stage to be read by the spectator. The act of
writing can also draw attention to the materiality of the literary
composition in poetry and prose: ink, pen, paper, and other objects
involved in the writing process. Conversely, it can be used to express
the writer’s difficulties in constructing and expressing thoughts. These
acts of writing can give rise to various interpretations: cultural (the
question of authorship, the evolution of humanistic culture in an
expanding print marketplace), religious or moral (writing as
inscription/ prescription) and aesthetic.
We welcome articles in English on acts of writing in the European
literature of the early modern period for the 2012 Spring-Summer issue
of Etudes Epistémè (http://www.etudes-episteme.org), a biannual peer-reviewed on-line journal based at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris.
Contributors should submit an abstract and a biographical note by July 1, 2011 to Laetitia Coussement-Boillot (coussement@univ-paris-diderot.fr) and Christine Sukic (christine.sukic@univ-reims.fr). Acceptance notifications will be sent by the end of July 2011 and deadline for completed articles will be March 1, 2012.